DATA from underground vaults in Europe is baffling economists. Thousands of experiments have led to a startling new discovery. Money, they now believe, disappears faster than the speed of light.

By the time you’ve finished this article, dear reader, many tiny particles known as neuros will have undergone a significant change, leaving your savings or deposit accounts and travelling across immense distances to relocate themselves in pockets called Goldman Sacks.

It is not yet known how or why this happens, but economists admit these are truly remarkable findings.

“We may have to revise our thinking about everything. Until now, quantum economics have been based on the universally accepted law of common-sense: look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves. But these results challenge that fundamental principle.”

Neuros – the nth fraction of an electronic currency used by all Europeans – are invisible to the naked eye. Read your bank balance in an hour’s time and it will no doubt look the same as it does now. It will, however, have decreased in value. A number of neuros will have been lost, following the bombardment of all monetary particles by the Large Having-you-on Colluder.

“Essentially, this is about dark matter,” an expert told me. “It’s easier for us if you’re kept in the dark about matters that don’t con-CERN you.”

There is already convincing evidence of black holes in the banking system, with billions of neuros inexplicably transferred, according to the accounts of Diamond and Green, pioneers of the theory, ‘the more you fail, the more you get paid’.

Economists are now expected to re-double efforts to find the Scroggins-Bonus particle, named after a cleaner from Pontefract. She first hypothesised that all neuros had a tendency to disappear down the back of the sofa.

Does the new discovery make time travel possible? Apparently not.

“Anyone thinking they’ll get their money back is living in a parallel universe,” said an economic spokesman.